User blog:ThatOneNeighbor/Development Blog
A blog dedicated to my development for The Happy Tree Curse First Thoughts/Beginning (Still in Development) One day, Cynthia is lounging around in her apartment when she hears a loud crash. She jumps up and looks down to see Dale and Steffen in a car wreck. People are already gathering around and screaming. She looks in horror as Dale's lifeless body is pulled out from the wreckage. She feels tears springing to her eyes when she suddenly remembered; death doesn't matter in this world. Nothing will really be different after a good night's sleep. She also realized she never bothered to look into why this happens, so she goes downstairs and out to the library to find out. The librarian tells her she doesn't know what she's talking about, so she runs off on her own. Little does she know, a shadowy being is following her... After much searching and frustration, she finds a book talking about "The Curse of the Tree Friends", which details something in an ancient language she didn't understand. She noticed the book wasn't even registered under the library, but she shrugs off the odd feeling and goes to check it out anyway. To her surprise, the librarian was gone, and so was everyone else. The lights above the check-out desk and the computer were on, but oher than that the building seemed closed. She found this to be weird as well, but again, she just thought it was the weirdness of this world. She checked it out herself by leaving a note of the computer and left. The next day, she got a knock on her door. It was Dale. He brought over some pastries and coffee. Cynthia saw this as her chance to ask some questions, so she pulled him inside and locked the door. He yelled, as the coffee spilled on him, but she shushed him and pulled him closer. He was confused until she asked "Do you remember yesterday?" He shook his head, whimpering from the pain. She then asked "You know you died... right?" Again, he shook his head, this time confusion overshadowed his pain. She then explained, saying that everything in this world was never permanent, and that the next day, his burn marks would be gone. He had no idea what she ment, and he considered escaping to go to the hospital, but she insisted he stayed, just so she could see for herself. He blushed, but she then pushed him on the couch and told him to watch some movies with her. He agreed, albeit out of fear of her reaction. She ended up feeding him and monitoring everything he did and how his body changed during the day. She even stayed with him on the floor as he lay on the couch for the night. She was going to stay up and see exactly when his wounds healed, but she ended up falling asleep. The next day, Cynthia wakes up, immediately remembering her objective. She ripped the blanket off him, causing him to suddenly wake up as well. She sees that the injury was completely gone. She was in awe, but upset that she didn't witness it. She wondered if she should've recorded it. Dale gets up in a panic, tripping over the couch and looking at Cynthia with a terrified face. She looks up at him, suddenly realizing how odd she was acting. She gets up an explains herself, saying that she seemed to be the only person who remembered the horrors of everyday, and that she felt bad for taking advantage of him, especially his injury. He accepts her apology, even though he still didn't understand her. She then suddenly gets an idea. She packs the book up and runs downstairs, causing Dale to follow her in a confused frenzy. He yells to her to explain, and she does, saying that if Steffen didn't remember hitting and killing him, then her theory was one step closer to being proven correct. He yelled, asking her what she ment by Steffen killing him, when they get to the bus stop. Someone else is on shift, so she tells him they would have to get on, go to the bus station, and ask him questions. Dale decides to go with her, mostly out of sheer confusion, so they head off to get to the bottom of this mystery. They don't notice, but the sky above the apartment complex gets dark and ominous, and everyone in the city turned to see it in awe and terror, as if hypnotized. Notes/Next *The go to the bus station and ask him, and he obviously has no clue what she's talking about *They leave, as he has to get onto his shift later, and they decide to try and find a scientist or even someone who's an expert at analyzing/decoding artifacts *They go all throughout the city before running to the fanon and canon worlds *Eventually, they reach the abandoned kingdom, which has a magical and mysterious energy around it. Everything is in ruins, to the point that some stuff is underground. It was there when civilization first came to be *Dale, at one point, brings up the "it could just be a dream" scenario while deep into this seemingly pointless quest. The artifact expert even considers it just being a peice of fiction. But she refuses to quit Extra *This is a sort-of "tag-team" sorta of game, as in Cynthia, Dale, and the expert at artifacts all go on this journey. There is also the ability to call on fanon or canon friends to help you *Flaky is the only canon character who is also aware of this, but she is of course far too timid to join the main action. She does, however, try to help in any other way she can *Frizzle realizes something is wrong when Cynthia forgets to call her for a few days, as they talk every night at 8:00/20:00 *The fanon and canon worlds are accessed by them all going far enough in a certain direction. The map has some modern-day locations on it, as well as some other unrecognizable things on top, as if saying they were both in the same place. It is possible this was done with "dimension hopping", as each universe is considered different in this game. This would also mean the "curse" spread through every dimension *The gameplay is mostly exploration based, although that classic blood and gore is still in it, especially in the later parts (I'm currently not sure exactly what it'll be like, I want to add fighting in as well as heavy exploration and character building. I might make it so all three of them use a certain type of defense, such as Cynthia with an endless bag of stuff, Dale with shield-like quills and the artifacts guy having some small weapons of some sort, and the others helping in their own unique way as well such as fighting or healing and such) *Each character has their own leitmotif *The curse isn't exactly how Cynthia explained it/theorized Random Ideas/Concepts *They go to a bar *They go to a hospital to ask them about the patients or even go to the morgue *They ask people about permanently dead family/friends, whether they died in the backstory or later on in the series *There might be minigames, like a Club Game or a Baking Game, it all depends on where you go and what you unlock/discover *When the game is over, you may be able to unlock a feature where you can create a character who can then run around after the adventure takes place, doing their own thing and moving in near your desired characters *The houses of everyone isn't shown in the beginning, that or you teleport to them somehow *They might look into an observatory and even project themselves into space *You can interact with all computers and phones, which means it'll have working calculators, clocks, alarms (if you set someone's alarm and leave it they may comment on it), games, ect Concept Gallery received_2059135874152207.png|The first basic idea for the art style, using Fink from OK K.O as my model This is obviously still in development, but I hope I can make this happen. I love making lore, and game-design, while not my main joy, is something I find interesting, and I hope it comes out nicely! :D Category:Blog posts